Proper 2
2 Kings 5:1–14
1 Corinthians 9:24–27
Mark 1:40–45
Naaman’s wife’s maid knew more about Elisha’s healing powers than the king of Israel. All the king could do was tear his clothes and rage against his Syrian counterpart, suspecting that a request for healing was a disguised excuse for renewed hostility in their already long-running, and still continuing, border disputes. In such a setting, a concession or a friendly request or gesture is instantly regarded with suspicion. As we know, three thousand years of tussling over territory is not easily forgotten.
Could Naaman’s own story—including the verses after our passage ends—indicate ways forward? He, too, one of the great ones in that little world, has to learn from his servants what he could not see for himself: that the humiliation which leads to health is better than the pride which leaves you a leper. The rivers of Damascus were indeed greater than the muddy stream of Jordan, but they had never parted to let God’s people through to the promised land. They could not serve as symbols of new life.
Naaman’s conclusion is striking, now as then: there is no God in all the earth except in Israel (v. 15). No other god does this sort of thing. But if the outsider Naaman can be welcomed and healed, the insider Gehazi, who behaves like a shameless pagan, is thrust out. Humiliation and pride p 31 know no boundaries; judgement, like mercy, is applied even-handedly by the one true God. Those who grasp all they can will find that it chokes them. Those who humble themselves will find healing. The self-control of which Paul speaks is required in full measure at this point, both in personal and communal life.
Mark’s description of Jesus’ confrontation with a leper is puzzling, particularly v. 43. Some translations soften it, but it looks as though Jesus is overcome with fierce emotion. Has the leper taunted him, challenging him with a harder act of healing than his previous ones (perhaps ruled out by v. 41)? Is it that Jesus suspects the leper is deliberately approaching him as if he were a king (he kneels to him, v. 40)? Is it because such a healing will now let the cat out of the bag, inviting attention on a scale Jesus had not wanted, or not this soon? Or is Jesus, perhaps, anxious that his followers, Gehazi-like, will try to turn his strange powers into a get-rich-quick stunt?
In any case, Jesus is determined to provide multi-dimensional healing. A leper could only be reintegrated into the community if given a clean bill of health by the local priest, not if he simply claimed to have been cured by a wandering preacher. But the ex-leper has no inhibitions: he tells people everywhere what has happened to him. Mark’s strange story moves on, with the Galilean villagers discovering more of God’s healing and grace than Herod, up the road in his palace, had ever dreamed of. Some things don’t change.
N. T. Wright, Twelve Months of Sundays: Reflections on Bible Readings, Year B (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002). 30-31.
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